With a gush of reddish smoke, the whispers cease. The air hangs hot, and lightly scented on the tongue; incense tickles the nose, and the eyes squint to peer through the crimson haze. With a single word, tense muscles relax and upright bodies sink back onto the hard stone seats, the hands grasping hilts hesitate and fall back into armored laps. They wait, and then raise their voices once again, lilting notes proclaiming the glory of the Queen of Spiders . . .

The Matron's Outpost

250 Years Ago.

. . . and she was sinking, sinking back into the stone, and her eyes wouldn't close; they saw the approaching figure, a blurry memory of yellow and grey heat, loom up before her, thing -- hammer? mace? -- in hand.

"Make normal noises." the figure said, simply, coolly, and then SWUNG and it was black, black, black and. . .

. . . someone was shaking her.

"Etheyl!"

The young female came out of the darkness of her oblivious Reverie in slow, creeping stages that seemed to slide from one to the other, gently bringing her mind into a soupy stage of semi-consciousness. The shaking hands helped: whoever it was, they had a nice, firm hold that was making her teeth ache as they clicked together. Still, her sleeping mind refused to arouse itself fully; it demanded that her eyes remained close, and Etheyl's eyes were prompt in heeding her mind's commands.

The hands, however, apparently did not aspire to gain the good will of her mind: they ceased their shaking and in the stead of jolting motion they opted for several quick, sharp slaps across the face in rapid succession. Etheyl flared back into awareness, her scarlet eyes popping open.

"Gu'e!" her mouth had copied her eyes, and when it popped open that sentiment burst out. Etheyl lifted her head and got a good view of the landscape of a fellow black-skinned face. The two were barely inches apart, and, now that Etheyl had raised her head, the tips of their pointy noses were brushing.

"Good." Sinda of House Myneld, Etheyl's fellow commander and elder cousin, retracted her visage back several inches as she shifted back into a graceful crouch -- the better, Etheyl knew, to gaze down her long nose at the younger drow. The thought crossed her mind swiftly, trailing a bit of old bitterness in its wake, and Etheyl supposed that some of it may have shown on her face, for Sinda's own countenance seemed to thin with contempt.

"Wake up, child." she snapped at her fellow, rising up to her full five-foot-six height, her long hair ghosting up her back as she did so and gleaming in the weak blue light of the Light Globe in the corner. Looking down at the prone Etheyl, Sinda added, in scolding tones, "And wipe that pout off of your lips -- it does not befit a self-respecting female of your station."

Etheyl felt hot, sick anger dig a new spike into her belly as she watched the pompous warrior, her insult delivered -- for the implication of her statement was that Etheyl was not a self-respecting female worthy of her station -- stride away on slender legs. Sinda was a full ten inches taller than Etheyl's four feet and eight inches, and, although she was but twenty-three years older, she retained the station of the eldest daughter of the eldest daughter of her grandmother's clan. Etheyl hated Sinda with a low, seething dislike, and the feeling was mutual.

The female warrior felt blood rise to her cheeks as she considered the situation -- she had had to be slapped awake like some mindless orc! -- and cast the thin cover of her bedroll from her body, glancing about to see if anyone had seen the shameful conversation with her cousin. Some of the drow curled up on their bedrolls may have, but Etheyl doubted that they realized the situation -- she was the only one in the cavern that was fully awake. As one of the co-sub-leaders of the new influx of warriors to the outpost, she had been awarded a small alcove off the main cavern, and could clearly see her lessers, their minds still blissfully seeped in the calm that was the Reverie, lying still and breathing deeply. She smirked a trifle disdainfully when her heat-seeing eyes found an extra visitor in a single bedroll, noted who was who, and chalked it up in her mental stores of information: it may come, she thought, in handy some day.

Assured that most of them were comfortably resting as well as they could while nestled on the cold stone floor, and, more importantly, not paying any heed to her, Etheyl began to dress, tugging on her black, high-collared blouse and the suit of shining chain mail. Her mind flicked back to the dream she had been experiencing -- it had been very vivid -- but she shook it off as the product of an overworked mind and thought no more of it. Today they would be arriving at the Outpost of House Myneld, and what a glory that was. For sheltered Etheyl, who had spent her entire life in the City of Emerald Waters, traveling through unknown and rough stone tunnels had not been a joy.

She strapped on her two swords, their blades fairly brimming with the powerful and wicked auras of the clerical spells they had been imbued with; with the blessing of Lolth and a magically sharp, serrated edge, they were weapons that she had earned with sweat and blood, some of it her own, most of it not. Following that action, she slipped three rings, two of them smoky black crystal and the third a rare gold boasting a small ruby, onto the first three fingers of her left hand; the right was bare except for the slender silver bracelet about her wrist. The nails of her slim hands were clean and even, neither too long nor too short, and shone when the Light Globe caught them.

Why, Etheyl suddenly wondered, did they need a Light Globe? She added that inquiry to the list of questions she planned to ask Xullavin Myneld when they dumped themselves, preferably with a reasonable amount of dignity (though, knowing Xullavin, there wasn't much chance of that) at the High Priestess's feet later that day, and then let it float free of her mental grasp. Lolth knew all that she had to do today; worries about such an insignificant globe of glass were not conductive to a quick and ready mind.

She did notice a small, green glow, but passed if off as a further figment of her imagination and pulled her boots on.

"Ilmna'ryne."

The call was not particularly insistent or loud; rather than piercing the fog hugging her mind, it merely slipped about it. She dignified it with the intelligent retort of "Mmm?"

Nudge, nudge; fingers poking through her shirt. The voice in her ear, sweet and dramatic and whispery-soft: "Arise, fair Ilmna'ryne! The world lays at your delicate feet, having rolled to a screeching stop when some almighty god or other accidentally used it for an immortal game of gache. . .

"Nilor?" she asked, rolling away from the voice (and stealing most of the blanket, although she wasn't aware of this at the time.) as she did so.

"Siyo?" he replied, one of the drow words for 'yes.' Intelligent, fool, she thought, as she snickered a little at the image of a god playing a drinking game.

"Shut up."

"Oh, that's polite." she felt his fingers tighten on her arm, although his voice remained cool. Ilmna'ryne's eyes opened, their green irises dark in the bluish light and icy with budding anger.

"I mean it, male." she hissed, and Nilor, who had been watching her from his own bedroll, drew back sharply at the sharpness of her tone. His shirt rustled as he did so; apart from that, the movement made no sound.

"All right, then."

Ilmna'ryne did not answer the impertinent reply: she merely rolled over onto her belly and fixed the male with a deadly glare that promised a slow and painful death. Nilor shrugged, rolled over on his bedroll, and decided that the humorless female wasn't worth it so soon in the day.

They, along with twenty or so other drow, were making do with the uncomfortable cave floor: Ilmna'ryne had gotten a full four hours of rest, an accomplishment that she hadn't managed any of the previous nights of the two tendays the company had been marching for the Myneld Outpost. Others were stirring about them, moaning slightly or curling beneath their coverings, and, across the cave, Ilmna'ryne could see that imperious witch, Etheyl, brushing her long hair. Ilmna'ryne's own hair, its silky strands white-blond instead of the stark paleness of her fellows, sprawled about her pillow; she absently sat up and reached for her pack, intending to dig out her brush from wherever it had been hiding and tame her wild froth of waves.

As she bent over to peer into the backpack, her stiff back began to complain about the housing conditions; she ignored the uncomfortable feeling, reminding herself of worse pains. When at last the brush made itself known, the drow licked her lips and assumed a calm, relaxed position, cross-legged on the floor, even though her eyes scanned the room. No one was looking; if they were, the angle would be wrong. She steadied her eager hand, reached into the pack, and gently moved the arms of a bundled shirt aside.

Nulleari was intrigued.

It wasn't often that the plain, small female found the life about her particularly interesting: Nulleari personally viewed the world as a boring, stupid place full of boring, stupid people, even those precious few that were reasonably smart but still horribly tedious and made the most imbecilic of decisions. The silver-haired female did not get along very well with others, and others found it considerably hard to get along with the cold, soft-spoken girl. Nulleari moved through the motions of her days with a certain detachment, as if nothing could touch her and as if she had no wish to touch anything.

She wasn't very ugly, nor very beautiful: her best physical feature, most decided, was her shock of silvery-white hair, which the cool female usually kept in a severe, painfully tight braid down her back that came level with her wrists. Her body was thin and small, only a few inches above 4'6, and she wore austere and unadorned clothing, favoring the practical over the pretty. With her small, sharp features, intense eyes, and spookily silent manner, Nulleari found that she made others uncomfortable; her lips were especially good at this job, as they were thin yet naturally upturned, so that it seemed that the cold-eyed female was always smiling slightly, a thing that most others found disturbing indeed.

Nulleari found the unease that followed her wake amusing, and she was quick to use it to her advantage. A child of the commoners of a small, merchant house, she had found herself a new addition to House Myneld when they came to conquer; with her mother's latest consort and one of her idiotic brothers dead in that assault, Nulleari had considered the attack a good thing, and had even looted the consort's body; her mother knew nothing of this, and Nulleari happily kept the spoils that would have been her mother's right.

She was a quick sleeper, a light sleeper, and slept easily; worries and ambitions held little place in her life, and she boxed them up safely when she took Reverie. She was also usually awake before others, and was in fact the first drow awake in the large cave.

She had indeed witnessed the scolding one of the commanders had given another one, had listened to the whispered conversation of Ilmna'ryne and her latest consort, had been privy to a dozens of sounds that no dwarf or human would have detected. The crafty female had also been watching when Ilmna'ryne pulled her pack close to her in the careful manner of a merchant pulling an energetic baby lizard to herself, and was now greatly interested in the soft, green light that flooded the top of the pack and part of Ilmna'ryne's face.

Nulleari sensed opportunity.

She rose with the grace and silence granted to her by the blessing of her race; a small, dark shadow, she slowly danced her way through the chaotic mess of bedrolls and sleeping drow elves, taking great care not to step on anyone's hair, and snuck up behind Ilmna'ryne.

To the other drow's credit, she did notice the approaching female, had even begun to turn about when Nulleari closed the distance between the two, and had one hand snaking out to grasp the hilt of her sword when Nulleari's hands came down hard upon her shoulders, right next to her neck. Nulleari could see the anger and shame upon Ilmna'ryne's face, could see the predictable calculation ticking away in her green eyes(what is this going to cost me? how can I get out of this? what would that cost me? what would that gain me?) as her lips moved in spasms of silent curses.

"Good morning, soldier." Nulleari whispered discreetly in Ilmna'ryne's left ear, moving her face up next to the trapped female's and pressing her cheek to Ilmna'ryne cheek as she braced the other drow against her knee. "What is this interesting green glow, I wonder?"

Ilmna'ryne gritted her teeth; Nulleari bit back a wolfish smile. She could understand the emotions of Ilmna'ryne at the moment, even if she did not sympathize -- the female had, after all, allowed the situation to happen by not being alert enough, and, in the rules of the drow world, she deserved the situation she did not avoid.

"You wouldn't mind if I had a look?"

Ilmna'ryne, understanding that she had been caught, scowled deeply. "Be my guest."

Nulleari nodded, smiled, and peeked into the sack. What she saw nearly took her breath away; aware of her distraction, she tightened her grip on Ilmna'ryne. Her smile bloomed cold and victorious.

"What," she whispered against the warmth of Ilmna'ryne flesh, "would you give to me to insure my quiet?"

Her meaning was not lost on the female. Ilmna'ryne's lips went tight, and her skin flushed, something that would have been obvious had Nulleari been looking out in the heat-seeing spectrum. The female seemed as if she would just explode, would destroy the wretched drow peeking into her treasures. Nulleari could see the image of herself dying horribly reflected in Ilmna'ryne's eyes; she did not bother to stifle her yawn.

"Fifty gold." Ilmna'ryne hissed.

"Not enough." Nulleari whispered, pressing the tips of her nails to the cloth of Ilmna'ryne shirt and exerting pressure.

"Sixty." the hiss had become a growl, and Nulleari uttered a short breath of answer out in reply:

"Ha."

"Seventy."

"You try my patience." Nulleari let go of one shoulder, flicked her wrist in the same fluid motion, dropped a dagger into her palm and slit said dagger down Ilmna'ryne collar. It slipped down her back and nicked her spine.

"What, then?" Ilmna'ryne snarled, more in anger than in fear; Nulleari suspected that she was cursing herself thoroughly for allowing Nulleari to sneak up upon her.

"A hundred. For a starting fee." Nulleari cut of a protesting noise with a flick of the dagger, and Ilmna'ryne ground her pristine teeth. "And one of those."

Now Ilmna'ryne made a small choking sound, but Nulleari laughed quietly in her ear. "What are you opposed to?" she hissed, her breath hot in Ilmna'ryne's perfect ear. "If I have one, then I must keep the secret, too." When Ilmna'ryne opened her mouth to speak, Nulleari shushed her gently, and shook her just a little. "Of course, I could hide mine, I suppose, and expose you: but then you could, of course, expose me, and then, assuming that your friends could find my little hiding space, where would I be?"

Ilmna'ryne considered silently, and then gave a curt nod. What choice did she have?

Nulleari was grinning as she reached into the sack and helped herself to one of the little beauties inside.

For those who wish to know, the drow name generator I used, see my profile. Otherwise, I hoped you enjoyed this quick chapter (only 6 pages long): and, to those who were wondering, I actually did generate the name 'Adultree.' Thank you for reading, if you review thank you for doing so, and have a good day.